St. Marks Evangelical Lutheran Church
“God Speaks through Isaiah: But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my LORD has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these might forget,
yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
Your builders outdo your destroyers,
and those who laid you waste go away from you.
Brothers and Sisters,
These words came to me in the middle of the night as I was pondering what to write you: “I have written your name on the palm of my hand.” As you can see, I did not remember it exactly for the word is not “written” but “inscribed.” To be inscribed is almost like a tattoo but conveys an even weightier connotation. It is more like being chiseled into stone like the name on a grave maker. Names chiseled onto monuments last for millennium.
But this is no stone. This is the living hand of God, or more specifically the hands of God, like hands cradling a baby. The people of God were feeling forgotten and forsaken for their situation was that of living in Exile, slaves in a foreign land. Yet, God says that their very being is in the hands of God.
Note that I remembered that it was the “name” written on the palm of the hand but the exact quote is “you” (yourself, your being, your life, your circumstances, all of you) are inscribed on the palms of God’s hands. And this is not a singular “you” but a plural “you,” literally “all you all” as they say in the South. This is a communal promise that we are not forgotten.
To be forgotten is to cease to exist. It is as if you no longer matter or have significance of any kind. We remember what is important to us and we forget what is not. It is simply beyond our human capacity to remember every person and every experience in our lives, and so our brains selectively forget. Part of that forgetfulness is forgetting the accumulation of minutia which matters not. Who cares if we forget whether we had iced tea or lemonade last summer at the pool party? Far more serious is the “forgetting” of a childhood trauma when the brain disassociates itself from the trauma; “This cannot be happening to me!” When this happens, the person has no memory of the trauma until a trigger causes remembrance.
God has no amnesia. Inscribed on the palms of Jesus is forever the mark of the nails. Those nail marks forever remind God of his great love for us and the preciousness we are to him.
Peace,
Pastor Doug
